Sins of the Fathers (27 page)

“It appears that the pirate was both your relative
and
Dr. Flo’s,” Katharine told Burch.

“He has nothing to do with the Guilberts. Nothing to do with pirates, either. I’m sure that skull thing was a schoolboy prank.”

Chase’s sarcastic laugh was rough like his voice, not yet mellow or mature. “Family’s only got one pirate. We ought to be proud of the fact.”

Dalt whirled on him. “Hush your mouth, boy! Mallery disgraced our family and went straight to hell. Don’t you ever forget it, and don’t ever tell.” He recited the jingle like an affirmation of faith. Had it been passed down through generations of Bayards?

Not to all of them. Burch was still demanding, “Who was Mallery?”

Mona put a hand on his arm. “Talk about it later. Posey and her friends need to get on the road.” She turned to them. “You’ve seen what you came for, and you’ve got a long drive ahead.”

She sounded so gracious, a stranger might think she actually cared.

Dr. Flo tilted her chin. “I have letters Mallery wrote to Marie Guilbert, making it clear that Claude and Françoise were his children.”

“His children?” Papa Dalt guffawed. “That’s a good one, isn’t it, Chase? This lady thinks these Guilberts were his children.” If he was making a joke, most of the others missed it.

Burch threw manners to the wind. “Shut up, Daddy!”

Katharine felt sorry for him, having to deal with an irascible old father determined to wring as much drama as he could from the day. However…. She stepped forward.

“Dr. Flo does have letters, which were in Agnes’s house, that make it clear that those children were Mallery’s. They also make it likely that the house was built for Marie and the children. I don’t know why your father finds that so funny, but we’re staying for this disinterment. You and Dr. Flo will need to agree on where to bury those remains.”

“Remains?” Dalt’s mirth had dissolved into exasperation. “I keep telling you, there are no
remains.
All that
remains
is to throw in the towel and give up your fool idea of building on this land, Burch, or there won’t be anything
remaining
of our whole damned family.”

“Dig it up,” Burch ordered Ned with an impatient flap of one hand.

“I’m telling you, smart-ass,” Dalt tried desperately, “there is no body in that grave. Never was, never will be. Give it up!”

“That’s interesting,” Dr. Flo murmured. Katharine nodded.

Ned nodded at Dr. Flo. “If you’ll step aside, ma’am?”

She backed as far as the tabby wall. Katharine and Posey stood beside her.

Gently Ned scooped out dirt to a depth of three feet. The blade struck something that rang in the air. He backed, dug deeper on one side, and peered into the sandy hole. “It’s a box of some sort, but not as big as a coffin. You want it lifted?”

“No!” roared Dalt.

“Yes!” yelled Chase and Burch. Chase was bouncing on the balls of his feet like the child in him was dying to break out.

Ned nodded toward his partner. They jumped into the hole and worried the box in the sand until they could get under it and hoist it out. It was green metal, three feet long, two feet wide, and one foot deep.

Chase’s gruff boyish voice cut the silence. “Oh, boy! Treasure!”

Burch scratched it with a coin. “It’s copper. I’ll bet Francis Bayard made it. He liked to work with copper—remember, Mona? He made that jewelry box you’ve got, and the chest in the living room. Maybe we can put the three of them together like a display or something.”

Mona didn’t answer. Her eyes were fixed on the box.

Chase bent over it. “What you reckon he put in it?”

Katharine could think of a number of things. Many Southern families buried their silver as war came nearer. If stories were believed, unclaimed silver caches dotted the Southern landscape. At the other end of a long spectrum, this box was about the size of an infant’s casket. Had Mallery blotted the family history before he departed for the Caribbean?

“Whatever it is, I also have a claim on it,” Dr. Flo reminded them loudly, stepping up beside Mona. The Bayards were massed around the box like it was the altar of a new and precious god.

“No, way,” said Burch. “Mallery was a Bayard. Whatever is in that box belongs to me.”

“Us,” Mona corrected him.

“Whatever is in that box belongs in the bottom of the slough,” yelled Dalt. “I keep telling you, Burch—”

“Mallery was the father of Claude Gilbert, my grandfather,” Dr. Flo pressed on. “I have more claim on the contents of that box than you do.”

Nobody was listening. The only thing the Bayards had on their collective mind was the box.

“The padlock is rusty,” Mona complained. “I don’t know how we’ll get it open.”

“I got a crowbar in the truck.” Ned looked toward Burch. “You want I should go get it and have a look-see?”

“No!” shouted Dalt.

“Might as well.” Burch pretended to be casual, but he was bent toward that box like it held the Holy Grail.

Chase knelt at one end, running his hands over the edges, caressing the box with his fingertips. “This thing is so well made.”

“Chase is a woodcarver,” Katharine informed Posey. “He’s really good.”

Ned’s wide shoes trudged heavily through the sand as he returned with the crowbar. The Bayards moved back slightly to give him space.

Mona glared at Dr. Flo. “If you think you have any claim on this box, you can think again. This box was found in our grave and on our property.”

“It may not be your property,” Dr. Flo reminded her. “That is to be determined in a court of law.”

Burch’s laugh was ugly. “Then get yourself a lawyer.”

“I have a lawyer.”

Burch looked around the clearing. “I don’t see him anywhere. You can take us to court over the land—not that you’ll win. But that box is ours.”

“That’s right. Don’t give it to her, son!” Dalt commanded. “Drop it in the slough!”

“I am her lawyer,” said a clear voice from the edge of the crowd.

Katharine watched dumbfounded as Posey stepped over the wall and marched up to the Bayards. She might only be five foot two and look like an expensively dressed blue-eyed bottle-blond bimbo, but nobody could question her dignity at the moment. “I represent Dr. Florence Gadney in this, and I state in the presence of these witnesses,” she gestured to include Hayden Curtis, Mr. Sykes, and his men, “that Dr. Gadney has a legal claim on the contents of this box, whatsoever they may be.”

“Bull!” Mona’s laugh was as rude as Burch’s laugh had been a moment earlier. “You’re no more of a lawyer than I am.”

Katharine held her breath. Could Posey maintain her bluff?

Posey’s lips curved into her sweetest smile and her drawl was so soft you could have spread it on toast for breakfast. “Emory University Law School class of 1976, hon. When and where did you graduate?”

Mona blinked. “Are you serious?”

“Absolutely.” Posey now addressed Ned. “We have no objection to your opening that box, so long as it is clear that Dr. Gadney has an interest in the contents.”

“Don’t let her get away with this, Burch,” Mona begged. Any camaraderie she might have felt for Posey over antebellum beds was consumed in the fire of her determination to own the copper box.

Burch looked over his shoulder at Hayden Curtis. Mr. Curtis came plodding up, sweating as heavily as he was panting from the heat. “Might as well open it and see what’s there if it’s all right with Mrs.—what was your name?”

“Buiton. Persephone Buiton.”

“Mrs. Buiton. We have no objections to opening the box if you have none.”

Katharine blinked.
Persephone?
What was Posey up to? Could you go to jail for impersonating an attorney under a false name?

“No!” Dalt grabbed Burch’s arm. “I keep tellin’ you, son. Don’t open it!”

“Do it,” Burch told Ned, then jerked his head toward Cooter. “Get Daddy out of here.”

Cooter dragged Dalt to the back of the small circle around the box.

Ned maneuvered the crowbar into the rusted lock and put his considerable strength behind it. “Here, boy, come help me,” he called to Chase.

Katharine had no idea whether he needed added muscles or not, but Chase jumped forward with alacrity. “Yessir!”

Dalt pulled loose from Cooter and flung himself across the box. “No!” He pounded his fists on the box, practically sobbing. “Boy, listen to me. At least listen to me! That’s all I ask. Listen to me!”

Cooter started to pull him off, but something in his daddy’s voice finally reached Burch.

“Wait a minute,” he held up a hand to stop Ned and Chase, then dropped it to his father’s shoulder. “Okay, Daddy, I’m listening. What do you want to say?”

Dalt grew still. “Not here.” He jerked his head to a private spot under a distant live oak. “Over there.”

Burch helped him up and steadied him as they walked to Dalton’s chosen confessional. They spoke for several minutes, heads close together. At several points Dalton waved his hands toward the women. At one point Burch stepped back and let out a strangled cry. When the story was finished, he stood with his back to the assembly, staring over the marsh. He turned to look for a moment at Dr. Flo, then asked Dalt a question. Dalton nodded. Burch spoke and Dalton nodded again. Burch draped his arm around his father’s shoulders and Dalt draped his around Burch’s waist. As they returned, it was hard to tell who was supporting whom. Burch motioned for Hayden Curtis to join him in a private spot. After consultation, they came back to the group.

“We’re not going to open the box,” Burch announced. Mona opened her mouth, but he held up his hand to silence her protest. “Daddy and I have agreed that it ought to go to Dr. Gadney. We will give you the box if you will sign a statement that you will never make public the contents of this box or use it in any way against our family.”

“But that will not invalidate any claim she may later make against this property,” Posey warned. “Such a claim would be based on documents she already holds.”

Burch looked at Hayden, who nodded. “Agreed.”

Dalt took a step forward, so furious Katharine expected flames to shoot from his nostrils. “She can make all the claims she wants, but this island belongs to me. Me and Burch,” he conceded. “Now take the damn box and git off our land.”

“Not the box!” Chase stumbled across the plot and fell to his knees beside it. “It was made by my great-great…” He stopped and looked helplessly toward Dalt.

“Your great-great-great-great-granddaddy,” Dalt coached him.

Chase nodded. “He made it,” he repeated helplessly. He rubbed his hand over its surface and tears glistened in his eyes.

Posey had reached into her purse for a notebook and was busy writing out a receipt.

Dr. Flo called to Ned, “I have no objection to your opening the box right now. We can put the contents into one of Mr. Sykes’s boxes, if he will provide one, and I will be glad to leave this box for Chase. It is possible that his own considerable talent has come down from the one who made it.”

“Don’t you open that damn thing here,” Dalt warned. “You take it somewhere else and open it in private. You can send the box back to Chase if you want, but don’t you dare open it here.” On the word
here
he waved one hand to encompass the clearing. He wasn’t refering to geography. He didn’t want any of the local men to know what it held.

“Okay, here’s your receipt,” Posey told Burch, “with both our stipulated disclaimers.”

Before they left, Dr. Flo shook hands with Mr. Sykes. She would have shaken with Burch and Mona, but they were engrossed in conversation.

Ned and Chase carried the box to the SUV and slid it into the back.

“I thank you so much,” Dr. Flo told them.

“You going back to Atlanta tonight?” Chase asked, his voice cracking as boys’ voices do.

“No, we’re going down to Jekyll for a few days,” Posey told him. “I’ve got a cottage there.”

“Have fun.” He turned to Katharine. “I’m sorry about somebody shooting at you.” With the resilience of youth, he changed the subject. “Miranda’s granny took Samson, Agnes’s dog. Did you know?”

Katharine was as glad as he to have a happier topic to discuss. “No, I hadn’t heard. The cats are doing well. I’m calling them Phebe and Savant, and they’re beginning to settle in. My niece’s friend is feeding them this weekend.”

“That’s good.” He took an uncertain step toward the cemetery. “Well, I guess I ought to get back. Mama wants me over there while they dig up all those folks.” He didn’t sound thrilled by the prospect.

As she started her engine, Katharine wondered if she would have insisted that Jon and Susan attend a similar event. Her last mental picture of Bayard Island would forever be Chase standing in the clearing, his hand raised in a final salute.

As they jounced toward the asphalt road, Katharine admonished Posey, “Don’t you know you can get in trouble claiming to be a lawyer when you aren’t?”

Posey’s blue eyes widened. “But I am. Didn’t you know? I graduated from law school right before I married Wrens, and worked until the babies started coming. I even keep up my license to practice in Georgia.” She patted her golden curls. “If Wrens ever throws me out or loses all his money, I want to have something to fall back on.”

“Which is about as likely as a snowstorm on our way to Jekyll,” Hollis pointed out from the backseat, where she sat with Dr. Flo.

Katharine vowed to warn Hollis privately never to take economic security for granted. If rapid poverty could happen to Dr. Flo, it could happen to anybody.

At the moment, she still had a bone or two to pick with Posey. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?” She could not have said why she felt so put out, but she did. “And is your name really Persephone?” Twenty-seven years they had been friends as well as sisters-in-law. Why would Posey, who chattered constantly, have kept both her name and her profession secret all that time?

Posey glowered. “Why that popped out this afternoon, I’ll never know. If you ever mention it again, it will be
me
shooting
you
across a clearing. I have never understood how Mama could saddle me with such a name.” Her giant sigh was a plea for sympathy.

Katharine wasn’t feeling sympathetic at the moment. Posey had ripped off a mask and turned into somebody else. “I still can’t understand why you never told me you were a lawyer.”

Posey shrugged. “I guess it never came up. I quit about the time you started dating Tom, and after that I was busy with the girls, then you all were getting married, and we’ve always had other things to talk about. But it’s never been a secret. The whole family knows.”

“Except me.” Finally Katharine identified why she was so hurt. She had no brothers or sisters, and no cousins. With her own parents gone, Tom’s family was the only one she had. She resented “the whole family” knowing something she didn’t.

Posey—often quick to understand what others were feeling—laid a soft hand on Katharine’s arm. “Don’t look at me like I’m a criminal. I wasn’t deliberately keeping secrets. I don’t mention being a lawyer because I don’t want people thinking they can call me for free advice, but I’m not ashamed of it or anything. My name, now—I don’t let that skeleton out of the closet very often. Nobody, and I mean nobody, has called me by it since I was six. How I could have blurted it out this afternoon…” She shook her head in disgust.

“You know what they say,” Dr. Flo contributed from the backseat. “The best-kept secret is one everybody knows.”

Katharine wondered what other secrets the Murray-Buiton clan might have in their joint closets, but now was not the time to ask. She had one more concern, far more serious.

“One secret I wish you had kept was where we are headed. You told Chase flat out that we’re going to Jekyll, and he and Mona know exactly where the house is. If he tells somebody else—well, one of those people was shooting at Dr. Flo a few hours ago.”

Posey pressed one palm to her cheek in consternation. “That didn’t cross my mind. Chase is such a nice boy, I answered without thinking.” She turned around to face Dr. Flo. “Do you want us to skip Jekyll and go on back home?”

Dr. Flo considered. “I’ll admit I’m a bit nervous about staying this close to the Bayards, but I’m also so weary that all I want is a good night’s sleep. They’re going to be busy at that cemetery pretty late, so I doubt they’d come after us tonight. Could we go home tomorrow? Mr. Sykes seems competent to handle the re-burials without me. I’ll come down later to visit Rodney, and I can see the new graves then.”

They inevitably drifted into a discussion of the mysterious box. “You all really don’t know what’s in it?” Hollis climbed on her knees to examine it.

“No idea,” Dr. Flo assured her.

“But Dalton did,” said Katharine.

Posey drew her eyebrows together until she remembered that caused wrinkles. “Why did Dalton laugh so hard he nearly wet himself when you said the Guilberts were Mallery’s children? They were, weren’t they?”

“We thought so from the letters,” Dr. Flo said in a thoughtful tone, “but I’m beginning to wonder if they could have been Marie and the captain’s children, whom Mallery was trying to keep safe.”

“He called them his greatest treasures,” Katharine reminded her. “Besides, in that case, you wouldn’t be related to the Bayards.”

“Hooray! I’m all for that.”

“I thought it was real rude, that old man telling everybody about his son falling into his mother’s grave,” Hollis said fiercely.

“I was surprised to hear that Burch’s mother died when he was six,” Katharine added. “Imagine being raised by that old curmudgeon. It’s a marvel he turned out as well as he has.”

“He’s not too bad,” Dr. Flo admitted. “Caught between a rock and a hard place, with Mona urging him to sell the land and his daddy yelling bloody murder if he does.”

“Not to mention a lifetime of having it hammered into his head that Bayard Island and Bayard Bluff are the center of the universe.”

Posey turned around so she could watch Dr. Flo and Hollis’s faces when she asked, “What about the scene when that woman claimed her daughter is Dalt’s?”

That occupied them for several miles. “Her poor husband,” Dr. Flo said thoughtfully. “He must have believed Nell was his little girl, don’t you think? I loved that picture of him taking her with him on his tractor.”

“A tippy tractor,” Katharine reminded her. “We’ll never know what he knew or didn’t. Like you once told me, the dead don’t take their money, but they take their stories.”

“The one I feel sorry for is Chase,” mused Posey. “That child is so gorgeous, I wanted to take him home and help him forget he’s a Bayard. You don’t reckon there’s anything we could do for him, do you?”

“I hope he or one of his kinfolks doesn’t try to do something to Dr. Flo,” Katharine said softly, for her ears only. “I still wish you hadn’t told him where we’d be.”

Posey’s eyes grew dark. “You think somebody might still want to hurt her?”

Katharine shrugged. “She still has a valid claim on Agnes’s property, and you saw how fierce the Bayards are about that island. I won’t feel safe until we’re back in Atlanta.”

Posey slumped back in her seat and didn’t say another word.

Dr. Flo called up, “Remember what Nell said about Chase, Katharine?”

“Chase isn’t out of the woods yet,” Katharine intoned solemnly. “The sins of the fathers are visited on their children to the third and fourth generation. It’s Nell I feel sorriest for in that regard, though. I don’t think she knew before today that Dalt was her daddy, and Burch sure hadn’t suspected. The only good thing from Nell’s perspective is that after this, the Bayards may increase their pressure on Iola to leave the island.”

“You don’t really believe all that stuff about kids suffering for the sins of their parents, do you?” Hollis asked Dr. Flo. “I’m not going to suffer for Mama’s sins, am I?”

Everybody laughed except Posey, who was staring out the windshield with her brow puckered in spite of wrinkles.

Dr. Flo pulled a pillow out of her carryall and tucked it behind her back. “Actually, that thing about the generations is in the Bible, except what it says is ‘I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.’”

Katharine was impressed. “How do you know that by heart?”

“I grew up memorizing the Bible. Used to win all sorts of prizes for it. It took me a few years longer to get it from my head to my heart, though. That was when I started trying to get to the root of things. Do you care to know what I found out about that particular verse?”

“I do,” Hollis said promptly. “Does it give me a loophole out of suffering for Mama’s mistakes?”

“Maybe. What I discovered is, Hebrew has different words for sin and iniquity. Sin is a temporary or one-time lapse into immorality—mistakes, if you will. Iniquity is general all-round wickedness, an evil condition of the heart, an attitude toward life and toward others. God defines iniquitous people as ‘them that hate me.’ But before you get too paranoid about that, Hollis, there is a chapter in Ezekiel where God promises that if the child of an unrighteous person turns around and does right, they won’t be punished for their parents’ sins.”

“Whew.” Hollis gave an exaggerated sigh of relief. Posey turned to make a face at her.

Dr. Flo went on as if uninterrupted. “Still, the effects of iniquity can definitely be felt three generations down. I have a theory—”

Katharine was feeling too muggy for a coherent theological discussion. She should never have drunk three glasses of champagne. She certainly should not be driving. Spying a restaurant sign ahead, she said, “Before you share your theory, does anybody besides me need a cup of coffee and a piece of homemade pie? Buckhead’s coming up.”

The sign advertised
THE BUCK HEAD ONE MILE. HOMEMADE PIES
.

The Buck Head, when they reached it, was a seedy wood-and-glass building surrounded by a sandy, unpaved lot occupied by two cars.

Katharine pulled in. “The
Open
sign is lit. Shall we give it a try?”

Posey looked at the establishment and wrinkled her nose. “Lordy, Katharine, the places you have taken me today.”

“Stick with me, baby. I’ll show you the world.”

The restaurant had a floor of red vinyl tile, yellow walls hung with the heads of four wistful looking bucks, chartreuse booths, yellow tabletops, and yellow, green, and orange striped curtains. “Shades on,” Posey said, pulling hers down from the top of her head as they entered.

“Stop it!” Hollis hissed. “You’re embarrassing us.”

“Hiss at Katharine. She may be giving us all ptomaine poisoning. But law, look at the meringue on top of that chocolate pie. It must be three inches thick!” She instructed the waitress, “Cut me as big a piece as you can for the price.” She turned to her companions and whispered, “First, I need a lipstick break. Do you think the bathroom will be clean?”

“I aim to find out.” Dr. Flo started toward a set of doors labeled
DOES
and
BUCKS
.

Katharine’s phone rang. “Maybe that’s Tom!” Posey exclaimed.

“Tom’s getting ready to go to a party,” Katharine reminded her. While Posey followed Dr. Flo, she stepped outside so her call wouldn’t disturb the three other customers.

It was Hasty. “I don’t want to be a pest, but I’ve been worrying about you all afternoon. How did things go down there?”

She opened her mouth to say a brief “Mission accomplished” and found a cataract pouring out. Her energy rushed out with the story until she felt so weak she had to sit on the curb to finish. It reminded her of times in high school when she had carried the phone out the back door (as far as the cord would reach) to sit on the steps and talk to Hasty.

He whistled when she described the sniper, fumed when she told him the deputy was dismissing the incident as a hunting accident, and interrupted before she finished telling about the aftermath of lifting Mallery’s stone. “You all are coming straight back to Atlanta, right? There are currents in all this I don’t like at all.”

“I know that, and part of me wishes we could. I’m so tired I could sleep a week. But Dr. Flo is wearier than I am, and she’s wanting to stay down here, so we’ve decided to proceed as planned. We may be coming back tomorrow.”

“But none of the Bayards know where you will be, right?”

“Not exactly.” She told about Posey’s slip to Chase. “And he and Mona were there Tuesday night.”

He was silent so long she thought she had lost the connection. “Hasty? Are you there?”

“I’m here,” he said soberly, “but I don’t like this, Katie-bell. I don’t like it at all.”

On that cheerful note, she went inside to join the others.

“Tom?” Posey inquired, her eyes so wide that her eyebrows met her fluffy bangs.

Hollis didn’t say anything, but her head was cocked to one side like she was ready to pass judgment without hearing the case.

Katharine was too tired for the hassle. “Did you order for me?”

“I did,” Hollis told her. “I ordered you warm blueberry pie with vanilla ice cream on top. Dr. Flo and I got peach, so we can swap if you like.”

“Blueberry’s fine. Let me go wash my hands.” She had never trusted those waterless sanitizers.

She returned to find that the pie and coffee had been served. Posey, back to her usual cheerful self, was tucking into an enormous piece of chocolate. Hollis and Dr. Flo were engaged in their earlier discussion.

“But you don’t think God
punishes
folks, do you, Dr. Flo? God can’t blame a kid for what its parents and grandparents did.”

Dr. Flo laughed. The discussion seemed to be rejuvenating her. “God is God, honey. God can do whatever God wants to do. But if a child lives in a family that is prejudiced, dishonest, selfish, or violent, chances are good the child will grow up that way, too—and get punished for it. Ask kids in juvenile detention center where they learned to lie, steal, shoot, hit, or do drugs.”

“They’re being punished by society, not God,” Hollis argued.

“Who created society? God is big on delegation.” She took time to eat some pie and sip her coffee. “Aside from children picking up iniquity from their parents, there is also the matter of natural consequences. They frequently take three generations to mature. It wasn’t the folks who wrote Jim Crow laws who had to deal with race riots, Civil Rights marches, and burning cities. It was their grandchildren.”

Katharine hadn’t been listening closely until then, but she took a break from pie to point out, “A lot of blacks suffered, too—in all three generations.” Her dad had been a Civil Rights lawyer. She had heard a number of horror stories.

“Of course,” Dr. Flo agreed. “Wherever there is iniquity, other people suffer. But it was the third generation of whites who suffered the consequences of their grandparents’ iniquity.”